The veteran Republican researcher reported to have sought to get access to Hillary Clinton emails stolen by Russian hackers in order to help Donald Trump’s campaign had a long history of involvement in “dirty tricks” campaigns against the Clintons.

Peter Smith told the computer specialists he approached in his hunt for the stolen emails that he was working with Michael Flynn, then a top Trump foreign policy adviser, according to the Wall Street Journal. But Smith, who has died since talking to the Journal, also had deep-rooted connections to Newt Gingrich, an old Clinton foe and enthusiastic backer of Trump.

Smith was a Chicago investment banker who was a major fundraiser for Gingrich when the latter was a Republican congressional leader in a ferocious battle of wills with then president Bill Clinton. Smith was instrumental in the “Troopergate” scandal, in which four state troopers who provided security for Clinton alleged that the then Arkansas governor had used them to find him women to have sex with.

He also tried to orchestrate a paternity suit against Clinton and tried to find a woman who would claim she had an illegitimate child with the governor.

According to David Brock, a former investigative journalist, Smith offered to provide financial support, including finding jobs and setting up a legal fund for the troopers if they lost their jobs as a result of the allegations against Clinton. Brock later expressed doubts about the veracity of the allegations.

“There was discussion of Peter promising to find them jobs at a certain level of income, and there was definitely discussion of a legal defense fund [for the troopers],” Brock told the New York Observer at the time. Brock, who has since founded the Media Matters for America watchdog group, did not return a request for comment on Friday.

The Journal said investigators looking into Russian meddling in the election had examined intelligence agency reports about how hackers wanted to get emails from Clinton’s server to an intermediary and then to Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and senior adviser to Trump who went on to serve briefly as his national security adviser.

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The newspaper said it was not clear whether Flynn had played any role in the quest of Smith. The Journal said Flynn did not respond to requests, the White House declined comment, and the campaign said Smith never worked for it and that any such action undertaken by Flynn, if true, was not on its behalf.

Congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating Russian influence in the election and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. Russia has been blamed for stealing emails of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and of the DNC.

But the newspaper said Smith and the hackers were focused on about 33,000 emails that Clinton said had been deleted and that Smith believed, with no proof, had been acquired by hackers. Officials have said there is no evidence Clinton’s private email server was hacked.

Smith told the newspaper that he was unsure of the authenticity of emails hackers eventually did send to him and he told them to pass them to WikiLeaks, the same outfit that published the emails taken from Podesta and the committee.

“We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government,” Smith told the newspaper. He died on 14 May at 81, about two weeks after being interviewed.

In emails Smith sent to potential recruits for his project, and which the newspaper reviewed, he referenced Flynn and Flynn’s son, Michael G Flynn, several times.

Mike Flynn was fired after less than a month because of revelations that he misled Vice-President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia’s ambassador to the US.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

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